Technology: The first video was terrific! Your central thesis was: technology used to be about presenting information, now it’s about accessing information as well as sharing and collaborating around information. You made an important point about how time consuming it can be to learn technology. I liked the quote about how Zack’s mentor teacher doesn’t bother buying books about technology. . . but I’d love to know how teachers learn about technology? You’re right, Zack. You can’t talk and show the video at the same time. It was distracting. I would use these programs to present information – record your voice and beyond that, to give STUDENTS opportunities to create and present with technology. Francis made a strong point about how it’s hard to keep students entertained – 60% of students are bored – so programs like Ning! really tap into how students are already using technology. Great point! That’s knowledge about secondary students at work! Steven your Prezi work was impressive. I hope you keep using this tool. Beautiful presentation – always double check grammar & spelling. Good collaboration, weaving of ideas and flow.

A Philosophy of Education: What clever thinking to look at your personal vision statements! That is indeed what they (and later your cover letters) are for. I loved the range of topics and ideas you presented. You successfully wove your ideas together and your transitions were seamless. Michael – assessments – great visuals – loved the cartoon! Targets are more specific than goals – this served as a great reminder to your classmates. Your message about assessment came through in a strong, clear way. You successfully drove home your point about authentic assessments. Gabby –I loved how you worked in biculturalism–gender-literacy- a powerful theme. I wish you had read the quotes to us! Strong and appropriate video resource. Your classmates appreciated how you touched on the myth of sameness vs. fairness and the shoe analogy. Sean – You ideas came through loud and clear. This issue is so important. I was happy to see you reference the Shanahan article and Lisa Delpit. You made strong points: “We can’t stand for “I ain’t writing nothing!” You reminded your classmates to consider the question, “How can I stimulate the student? How can I invoke learning for that student?” I appreciated your assertion that some teachers do granting students permission to fail, and that’s not acceptable. Also, the idea that schools contest or recreate democracy is rich and important. I know you’ll return to this in your own work.

Planning: I thought your organization, long term, intermediate, and short term was very clear and helpful. It was a motif you returned to a couple of times (flexibility), and that helped frame your presentation. I think you described each realm accurately and raised important topics and questions for planners to consider. You successfully included issues that one would not necessarily associate with planning into this topic, demonstrating how all of these issues overlap: finding openings, standards, learning environment, classroom management, etc. Your skit was clever and entertaining (Oscar for Yasmin). Using the slides behind the skit was visually powerful. Terrific resources included from multiple sources.

What is curriculum? What a gorgeous Prezi! It just shows how flexible and cool that tool is! The desks were so clever! And Gabe. . . it took me a second to catch on that you were “acting.” You got across the point that curriculum design is about developing “A curriculum that’s true to you and your students.” Your Do Now! was a very clever way of defining curriculum from the components you presented. Gabe’s point about helping students feel safe and comfortable through the curriculum was well articulated and important. Lindsay’s assertion that equality should be one of our concerns around curriculum development was also important, and it came across in a powerful way. Danielle made a strong case for weaving opportunities to be creative into the classroom curriculum. Ruby’s idea about teachers as role models was emphasized by the funny film that showcased teachers as “agents of change.”
Very cool presentation with the pictures and the desks! So clever! That effort really paid off!

Classroom Environment: What a beautiful wikispace! And you really packed this presentation with resources. I like how you divided this topic up into the categories of community, wall art, and classroom management. You reminded us that classroom environment connects meaningfully to many of the topics we have covered this semester: classroom management, the classroom as curriculum, organization and communication, relationships and community. . . the classroom as environment is certainly a form of curriculum. You emphasized the importance of wall art as something that communicates crucial messages to students, you clearly asserted that classroom management connects strongly to a thoughtful structure in a classroom and how important it is to slow things down in this environment so that structures can be felt and internalized. . . being mindful of issues like seating arrangements and how these kinds of organizations communicate messages to students. Loved the clip from freedom writers! Also, appreciated the examples of posters on classroom walls. I thought that bullying poster was very powerful! Intricate, well-composed, thoughtful project!

Literacy in the content areas - Yours was a beautiful presentation. The timing was perfect! I think you supported your central thesis – that literacy instruction is everyone’s responsibility very well. Your rehearsal of this paid offyou’re your transitions were seamless –good flow! You each spoke well about the challenges and importance of literacy instruction in your disciplines. The visuals were interesting, and the references to Shanahan were important for your classmates to hear and connect to. I also appreciated hearing that work with literacy done in one content can inform work done in other contents, and that we can reinforce the literacy work all teachers do with a joint effort, even though content area teachers need to figure out how to support learning with literacy in their own, content specific ways.

What do you know about secondary students? You took on a huge topic and presented your individual ideas/interests in a clear, succinct manner. You showed your classmates how much we have all thought about this topic indirectly and directly. Your quotes were relevant and helped support your main assertions – secondary students need curricula that connect to their lives (reference to the Alaska state standards was apt), secondary students require work that is designed to keep them engaged and interested, and secondary students need a community in which to work. I loved the reminder (I think from Claudia’s field teacher) that students will unite either with you or “to conquer you,” and that if a teacher can help students unite around curriculum, that’s the best way to go. This presentation stressed the importance of developing relationships with students through the work and in order to facilitate the work.

Classroom Management: This presentation was so cleverly done. Excellent use of technology! We really appreciated how you showed a piece of your film and then stopped to discuss what we saw. The scenarios were extreme of course, but also true. You picked some valid scenes that all teachers have encountered to discuss and deliberate. You worked the readings into these discussions successfully. Your message here was, “Look at yourself instead of blaming the student if you are having a tough time with classroom management.” You reminded us that work needs to be meaningful and engaging, that teachers need to keep proximity in mind, that students are people who want to be engaged in important, authentic work, and that “boredom and academic frustrations . . . meaningful work vs. busy work – proximity is important – Students are people – it’s important to respect them, and it’s important to establish some rules from the very beginning. Boredom and academic frustrations can be fertile ground for distractions and emotional issues.” You cited both our readings and Jake to make the point that the best discipline is a good curriculum. Again, very engaging, well-orchestrated group work.

Assessment: Beautiful presentation. You used the Prezi very well. I thought it was smart to think of one topic and imagine how you would apply diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments along the way, weaving the “I’m Just a Bill” idea throughout your presentation and returning to it with assessment ideas. Your handout made sense, and your reference to Howard Gardiner’s (and Jake’s) thoughts about allowing for multiple approaches to assessment activities was an important point – no single assessment can meet everyone’s needs. “Mix it up,” You reminded us. An assessment could be a journal, a visual reiteration, etc. The resources you cited in this presentation supported this central assertion – ideas from Fieldwork, readings, youtube.com!

updated assessment pp.ppt

**http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124209100**
Ravitch changes her mind!

What Makes an Effective Teacher?
The federal government has begun discussions on how the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, currently known as No Child Left Behind) will look after the next reauthorization. One aspect of that discussion concerns teacher effectiveness (a new definition to replace the Teacher Quality definition in NCLB). Reports such as the one from the Center for Education Policy at Harvard and those of pundits such as Jay Matthews of The Washington Post have joined that conversation as well.

NCTE's 2010 Legislative Platform urges that federal policy define teacher effectiveness as professional practice that:
-Applies deep content knowledge

-Uses pedagogical strategies and assessment strategies to enable diverse students to meet learning goals

-Is characterized by continuous engagement in and application of professional learning

-Includes participation in teacher learning communities to plan, assess, and improve instruction

-Connects students' in-school and out-of-school learning

-Incorporates current technologies in learning and teaching

-Engages parents and community members as partners in educating students

-Uses evidence about student learning to improve instruction

HOWARD GARDNER'S NINE MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES:

1. Linguistic Intelligence: the capacity to use language to express what's on your mind and to understand other people. Any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or other person for whom language is an important stock in trade has great linguistic intelligence.
2. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: the capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or to manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a mathematician does.
3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence: the capacity to think in music; to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have strong musical intelligence don't just remember music easily, they can't get it out of their minds, it's so omnipresent.
4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence: the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body (your hands, your fingers, your arms) to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly dancing or acting.
5. Spatial Intelligence: the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind -- the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences.
6. Naturalist Intelligence: the ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) and sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: having an understanding of yourself; knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves. They tend to know what they can and can't do, and to know where to go if they need help.
8. Interpersonal Intelligence: the ability to understand other people. It's an ability we all need, but is especially important for teachers, clinicians, salespersons, or politicians -- anybody who deals with other people.
9. Existential Intelligence: the ability and proclivity to pose (and ponder) questions about life, death, and ultimate realities.

Tips from Howard Gardner: How to encourage multiple intelligences in your classroom:

1. Teaching with MI (multiple intelligences) often necessitates that students work together in groups and/or on projects that employ many materials. Be sure that you adapt your classroom space as best you can to the parameters of the lesson. For example, if the lesson plan asks students to work with computers and you do not have enough in your classroom, try to schedule time in the computer lab in advance. If the lesson plan involves drawing or acting, be sure to arrange your classroom so that there is sufficient space and materials.

2. Be prepared not only to encourage collaboration and "thinking outside the box," but also to maintain some control by setting specific boundaries for students. For example, if the assignment calls for the students to work together to develop a presentation, be sure to define exactly how they should work together (perhaps by encouraging them to assign different roles within the group) and what to do if they have trouble cooperating.

3. One "answer" or outcome is not the only acceptable measure of a child's understanding. For example, if your objective is for students to understand the literary elements of a story or novel (e.g., rising action, conflict, climax, etc.), different learners might grasp the concept in different ways. One student might illustrate them through drawing, another might be able to re-create the elements through acting, and yet another might better be able to summarize them in writing.

4. Students need to have a clear understanding of how their work will be evaluated. Be sure to lay out the exact objectives and expectations of your lesson before beginning. Because MI allows for many different means of learning and expression, children need to understand that there may be many different forms of evaluation and that one style of work is not necessarily more demanding or time consuming than another. For example, if a project gives participants a choice between writing and illustrating, the outcomes will obviously be very different, but they may be given the same grade for meeting the same objective.

Agenda_for_March 1.lnk

Planning Notes.lnk

Trace's Planning Notes from 2/22 class

Unit & Lesson Plan Requirements:
Draft 1 is due on March 22

1.) Unit title: -1-

2.) Rationale and overarching goals: -4-
What principles (school/departmental vision, writing project principles, disciplinary values) do we want to enact?

3.) Major generalizations and concepts: -4-
One or two essential questions
Content Standard (see wiki-space for links to state standards)

4.) Instructional objectives (use Bloom’s Taxonomy here): -4-
Knowledge: what do I want my students to KNOW?
Skills: what do I want my students to be able to DO?

5.) Instructional strategies for each objective: -4-

6.) Plans for your culminating event/final exhibition -4-

Evaluation procedures (assessment plans to be added later):

7.)Resources: -4-

25 points,

Lesson plan requirements: 50 minute period

Lesson objective: -2-

Standards addressed in the lesson: -3-

How will you get students' attention? (beginnings) -2-
How will you present new material? -2-

How will you monitor for understanding? -2-

How will students independently practice the skills/content you are teaching? -2-

How will you group students? -2-

How will you address diverse abilities? -2-

How will the lesson close? -2-

Materials needed? -2-

How much time will you provide for each activity? -2-

How will you sequence the lesson? -2-

-25 points-